I can't get my fish to stop breeding!!!

[morganstevison]

Hey everyone! I am going to begin with my problem and ask if there is anyone that knows what to do... It is too easy to breed convicts! I never tried to breed my convicts but it just seems to keep on happening! I bought a pair of convicts from a pet store so my oscars would have some company. I have only had these convicts for about 3 months and in those 3 months they have had babies every month. The first time they had babies I got them out of my 75 gallon tank with the parents and put them all in a small bowl by themselves. Needless to say the mom jumped out and I was scared that would happen again while I was not home and placed them all back into the fish tank. The babies were eaten. I guess this inturn made the parents feel that they needed to have more to replace the ones that were eaten and did. I manage to save most of them and place them in a small breeding box in the tank. I thought since the babies were in this small box in the tank the parents would be ok and not have more fish.. Needless to say I was wrong... I have moved the tank around thinking that would cause them to not breed but they still did. I still have the second batch of fish and now they just had more. What do I do??? Its like they have fish every month. I was thinking if I made the tempature cooler that would help, but I am lost on how to keep these fish from having babies every month.... Someone please help me!!!

Morgan

[hungryhound]

Your fish breeding every month is a good sign. It means that they are happy and healthy and that your water parameters are good.

I Don't think that there is a way to stop them from breeding apart from separating them.

If you do not want the fry you can do a couple of things.

1. Leave them in the tank and your fish will eat them.
2. Remove the fry and raise them in a smaller tank and then try to sell them to the fish store.

IF you really don't want to have fry, then you can return one of your fish and get another of the opposite sex.

Otherwise it is kind of hard to keep animals from doing what they naturally do.

[Lady Hobbs]

Ask your fish store if they will buy them back from you. No way to stop them other than separating them.

[Chrona]

Ask your fish store if they will buy them back from you. No way to stop them other than separating them.

That was going to be my suggestion. No sense in making them expensive fish food when you can recoup some of the cost of this expensive hobby :)

[hungryhound]

That was going to be my suggestion. No sense in making them expensive fish food when you can recoup some of the cost of this expensive hobby :)

How do they become expensive fish food. If anything, it is cheap fish food as you paid nothing for it. But I agree. It makes much more economical sense to try and sell them and maybe recoup some of the money spent on this expensive hobby.

[Chrona]

How do they become expensive fish food. If anything, it is cheap fish food as you paid nothing for it. But I agree. It makes much more economical sense to try and sell them and maybe recoup some of the money spent on this expensive hobby.

Expensive in what they could have been worth if you had sold them. While it didn't cost anything to get them (excluding the extra feedings/time spent), they do have a certain value attached to them. An equal size pellet of say, New Life Spectrum would have cost you less than a penny. I don't know how much the LFS will buy the fry for, but I'm certain it's going to be more than that.

[nanaglen2001]

Whow in the USA there still exist Pet shops which take young Central American Cichlids from hobbybreeders??

Well then you guys can call yourself pretty lucky.

In Germany NO Petshop would take your Cichlids.
I have the same problems with my Meekis and Sajicas. They reproduce and reproduce and reproduce. Thank heaven I have lots of hungry mouths in my tank, so max. 3 babies will survive, but here 3 babies and there 3 babies...I will have a Sajica-problem in the near future.

One should really invent the antibaby pill for Cichlids. I would give him the Nobel-Prize.

[Chrona]

Whow in the USA there still exist Pet shops which take young Central American Cichlids from hobbybreeders??

Well then you guys can call yourself pretty lucky.

In Germany NO Petshop would take your Cichlids.
I have the same problems with my Meekis and Sajicas. They reproduce and reproduce and reproduce. Thank heaven I have lots of hungry mouths in my tank, so max. 3 babies will survive, but here 3 babies and there 3 babies...I will have a Sajica-problem in the near future.

One should really invent the antibaby pill for Cichlids. I would give him the Nobel-Prize.

LOL, I think a better plan of action is to simply teach abstinence at a young age ;)

[Drumachine09]

LOL, I think a better plan of action is to simply teach abstinence at a young age ;)



OR, we could spay/neuter our pets. Like bob barker says!